Cops: Fertility Doctor Secretly Used Own Sperm at Clinic

'It's a little bit creepy'
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 13, 2016 6:45 AM CDT
Cops: Fertility Doctor Secretly Used Own Sperm at Clinic
Dr. Donald Cline.   (Marion County Sheriff's Office)

If the allegations are true, dozens of people in their 30s around Indianapolis might bear a striking resemblance to each other for good reason: They share the same biological father. That man is allegedly Dr. Donald Cline, a 77-year-old retired fertility doctor, reports NBC News. Cline is now facing charges related to accusations that he used his own sperm to help patients conceive from the late 1970s to mid-1980s, instead of donor sperm from medical students as he had promised. Family members who met with him say he admitted to doing so about 50 times. The story began unraveling in 2014 when a woman used an online genetic-testing service to hunt for relatives, and discovered to her surprise that she had at least seven siblings. (Fox59 first reported her story.)

All roads led back to Cline, who "emphatically" denied to investigators that he ever used his own samples, only to have DNA tests contradict him in two of three cases tested. He is facing felony obstruction-of-justice charges as a result. Cline later allegedly confessed to families and says he used his own sperm dozens of times when his clinic was short on donor samples. A woman who runs a website that connects donors and offspring has scary advice for anyone conceived in such a way before 1990, before commercial clinics took hold: Take a strong look at the doctor. "It's a little bit creepy I have to tell them that," Wendy Kramer tells the Indianapolis Star. (A "genius" donor who told big lies about his background is now in hot water.)

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